


Afterlife

by missmarycontrary



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hades/Persephone - Freeform, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 14:39:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11969475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmarycontrary/pseuds/missmarycontrary
Summary: I would warn for GOT season 7 spoilers, but I think if you're looking for this character pairing, then you probably already know the news...Written based on the following tumblr prompt: 'No one can convince me that Petyr Baelish, now God of the Underworld, won’t kidnap the woman he fell in love with to make her his Queen. And we all know she won’t admit it, but her place is by his side.' I meant to write a crackfic but the mythology and angst of it all took over instead. Enjoy :)





	Afterlife

He couldn’t fathom how long he’d been here, guiding untold numbers through the gates of the seven hells. It seemed that the tide never slowed; thousands of men, women and children, first after the War for the North, then through all that came afterwards. 

Some he would greet as they came through the gates, and ask for a secret, a truth, a name as tribute. He dealt in secrets, and that thing would become his as they passed through his realm. And that way he came to know so many things, of all that went above and all that moved the hearts of the living. 

There was one name he wanted to be told, given to him to own. But it was never forthcoming, for so few in the world knew her well enough to give a piece of her away to the Lord of the Underworld. At first he could only get whispers of her name from lowborn men who barely knew her. Those whispers only gave him an ephemeral link to a small part of her; it wasn’t enough. 

But as battles came and went, and with promises of better treatment to those who acquiesced, he was given her name, again and again, with increasing authority: ‘the Lady Stark’. Some with spite, saying 'you want her, you can have her’. Some out of fear, fear of the unknown he guarded, and they would beg for it back.

Sometimes someone would come through who he recognised more personally, from another life. It was not his place to punish them more for what they had stolen from him, that was not in his power - at least, not while he guarded this place alone. But he could show them things, tell them stories which would make them suffer. And though most resisted, once or twice they would say 'have her - Sansa Stark’. And they would give him a secret, a trust of hers that was now his.

This allowed him to feel her, the times she approached the veil of death and was within his grasp. As so he waited for his moment.

He took her in a field just outside of Winterfell, which felt right to him. She had been riding in a procession which had been overrun - he didn’t care by who, not now that he was so close.

He pushed a rock from the earth and stepped up onto the grass, unseen by human eyes, and with the lightest of footsteps entered the world he had left so unceremoniously.

He had little influence in this world when it was in a more common order, but where there was this much death and chaos he could easily guide those who lingered away from the light. And so by the time he had crunched through the bloodied grass to reach her, he had ensured she was completely alone - but for the corpses, and the assassin’s dagger in her side.

He stood looking down at her for a few moments before she finally saw him. She didn’t look that much older – could all the death he had seen really have happened in a matter of months or years, and not decades? He supposed it must be so. A deep red oozed from the side of her mouth.

‘Baelish?’

‘Yes, Lady Stark?’ 

‘But – you’re dead…I – I saw you die!’

‘Take some more credit, sweetling. You killed me, you and your family. After all I gave.’ He dropped to his knees beside her. How sweet it was, to be free from this earthly concern of mortality. ‘But did it bring you the satisfaction you craved? Did it fill you with the warmth of justice? Or did it bring a world of sorrow down upon you?’

A sob escaped her lips. He knew what had come of her actions, and he felt no pity for her. But to have her bonded to him once again – for that he would move all things.

‘I have a proposal for you. You are about to die, Lady Stark, and I can make that journey easy or difficult for you, as I desire. Or, I can allow you to live, to take that letter hidden in your robe to its intended recipient - on one condition.’

Without thinking her hand moved towards the letter she had hidden in her smallthings, and the movement caused her to gasp with pain. He could sense her slipping away, but he held her there with him – their work was not over. Within a moment he felt a change, and knew that she was also fighting to stay awake.

‘On what – condition – Baelish.’

‘For as long as you survive you will spend three turns of the moon every year with me, guarding the seven hells. You would be as a wife to me and mistress of all those who pass through our gates. When you die you will return to me as you are now, to rule by my side forever.’

There was something in the air, something that seemed to say that this absurd ending to their story was the most natural and inevitable conclusion. They had both made themselves secretive masters of death; made it their business to know what others did not. Now he found himself the true Lord of the Underworld, and there was only one Lady who could rule beside him.

Her body was still now, but her eyes burnt brightly in the mist.

‘How has this happened Petyr?’

‘I don’t know, yet. But I know that alone I cannot… fulfil my duties. Together we must judge the curses of men and see them through – does that not appeal, sweetling?’

A moment more, a laboured breath.

‘When will I have to come to you?’

He thought for a moment, before answering: ‘the final 3 turns of the year.’

She laughed, as much as she could. ‘Every winter then.’

‘True, though now it seems it’s always winter.’

‘I don’t think that will last. Spring must come again – and soon, if I can just deliver this letter.’

He took her icy hand in his, the two of them caught in the netherworld between life and death. As he brought his head to hers, she whispered in his ear.

‘I accept.’

The deal was struck. From a pouch at his side he produced the pomegranate seeds, and with trembling fingers she brought them to her lips.

He stood again as the healing began, with frantic cries and coughs, until it was though her mortal wound had never been. She scrambled to her feet, still afraid and barely believing; but when she saw him there she knew it was all true.

‘Petyr – I don’t know how to say it – but I’m sorry for what we did to you.’

‘You’re sorry about how you did it, not that you did. But that is why you will make the perfect Queen. I do not pretend we will never know misery – but what betrayals can eternity show us that we have not already seen? Now run, for I will not save you twice. Do what you can while you have the time.’

He turned to leave. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and rain started to rinse blood from the fallen bodies, washing the red into the sodden earth.

Sansa shouted over to him.

‘I don’t think I’m so afraid of death now. Now I know what’s to come.’ She turned and began to stumble back towards Winterfell, a speck on a distant hill.

He knew she wouldn’t find the recipient of her letter there, and that it wouldn’t be many years before she joined him forever.

But he could wait.


End file.
